MORE: Who has history on their side? Top Black Caps v England clashes
Overall, though, two wins from two has a nice ring to it. But the real challenges will come in the next few days when the Black Caps face a hurting England in Wellington and then tournament favourites Australia at Eden Park.
Sri Lanka were swept aside in a professional and powerful display and then Scotland were convincingly beaten in Dunedin.
I was surprised to see a few critics targeted the margin of victory over Scotland as a possible chink in the home team's armour.
On the surface, I understand that a three-wicket win looks slight, but if you consider that the Black Caps were three wickets down and 40 runs shy of their target in the 18th over, then the result was never in doubt.
The four wickets they lost from that point were either through players manufacturing shots or getting caught on the boundary. Either way, the bottom line is that New Zealand's attacking intent remained the same even though they were playing a smaller cricketing nation, and their net run rate didn't suffer in a small run chase.
For the third World Cup in a row, Ireland knocked off a full test-playing nation. They beat Pakistan in 2007 and England in 2011 and can now add the West Indies to their growing list of scalps.
Ireland put the Windies away in an efficient display that showed they are ready for more cricket against test-playing nations. I remember reading articles about this subject back in 2007, yet we seem to be in the same position.
You don't hear or see much about Ireland in between World Cups, and then they cause an upset and people take note of their quality.
I counted eight English county players in their team that defeated the West Indies, and they have also produced current England captain Eoin Morgan. While some countries are rightly labelled as cricket "minnows", I think that tag disrespects the Irish and it's time they were viewed as a worthy international cricket team.
